Painting is dead... right guys? I mean... "ancient medium" and all that.

US Museum curators got together and decided to pick the US artist to represent the nation at the next Venice Biennale.

They picked a painter!

Not only that, but this is a second time returnee! The US choice for 2005 was also the US choice for 1970, when he contructed "Chocolate Room," a visual and sensory art experience where the Venice visitor saw 360 pieces of paper impregnated with chocolate and hung like roof shingles so that they smelled like chocolate; sort of like "scratch and sniff art."

But now he's just an "ancient medium" devotee.

Most local curators and Blake: read it and weep.

October (Art) Surprise: Tonight!

Curators Andrea Pollan and Nora Halpern have an October Art Surprise. Sponsored by Furioso Development Corporation, Metropolis Development Company, and G Fine Art, and in cooperation with Glen Construction (am I done with the credits?) they present: Jenny Holzer: Xenon for D.C.

Internationally acclaimed artist Jenny Holzer comes to Washington, DC to launch her first public art project here. The project consists of one of her first Xenon projections in the U.S.

Jenny Holzer's Xenon projections have captivated audiences around the globe from Buenos Aires to Paris to Berlin. She now presents them for the first time in the United States.

Tonight you can see the projections against the facade of the new 1515 14th Street Arts Building (near the corner of 14th & Church Streets NW between P & Q Streets).

On Monday, November 1, 2004, at the Gelman Library on the campus of George Washington University, Holzer will project poems, as well as declassified documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act and the work of the National Security Archive.

Congratulations to Washington area artist and co-founder of the Washington Glass School, Tim Tate who has been announced as one of New York City's Out Magazine 100 Most Remarkable People of 2004.

Tim will be hanging out in NYC next month gathering his award and hanging with celebrities like Ellen deG and others.

This is an important recognition no doubt based on Tate’s string of artistic accomplishments in the last couple of years, such as being recognized as the 2003 Mayor’s Arts Awards Washington Artist of the Year, two sold out shows at our two Fraser Galleries, major reviews in both national and international newspapers and magazines and his selection as the design winner for the International AIDS Monument to be built in New Orleans.

New Arts Based TV Show

GPV Group is an organization that provides assistance to program networks looking to expand.

They have started an arts news television program called ArtsMedia News. The program is starting off initially as newsbreaks airing seven times a week on MHz Networks in the DC area with further distribution to public television stations nationwide.

Starting in January they will be expanding to a half hour weekly program to air at 8:30 PM on Thursday nights on MHz with further distribution nationwide as well.

They've approached me to introduce some of the art newsbreaks that focus on DC-based art news and I will be doing my first one next week. This newsbreak will focus on the current exhibition Tradition in Transition: Russian Icons in the Age of the Romanovs currently on display at the Hillwood Museum and Gardens through December 31.

This is good news for our area's cultural tapestry!

Andrew Noyes has an excellent article in today's Voice of the Hill on the subject of the public art project that DC artist Marsha Stein has been organizing for the last few weeks.

The article is on page 32, and describes Stein's project as well as generous comments from the Washington Post's Chief Art Critic Blake Gopnik and from myself.

A novel concept that Stein has introduced to the world of art is the fact that she has a videographer working with her, and documenting everything in a reality TV approach. The videographer hopes that this project will be the seed of an art-based Reality TV series to pitch to the networks.

Interested artists should contact Marsha Stein at Marshasart@aol.com.

Venezuelan photographer Luis Gomez makes his DC area debut with "Cities," a 32-photo exhibit at Candida’s World of Books at 1541 14th Street N.W. (14th and Q).

The exhibit runs through November 15 and focuses on inner, urban cores —one of Gomez’s favorite subjects— and offers glimpses of architecture and streetscapes, as well as their people. The photos will take viewers to cities that include Amsterdam, Chicago, Havana, Madrid, Prague, Santiago, Sydney and others.

Cynthia Young defends the "grubs" in a passionate letter in this week's Washington City Paper.

And Jeffry Cudlin writes another really good review (why isn't Cudlin writing more often in the WCP?).

This time he reviews "Inventions: Recent Paintings by Caio Fonseca" at the Corcoran and damned near convinced me that Fonseca was not just another hack painting the kind of safe, unintelligible art that cannot remotely offend anyone and that one routinely sees in hotels, airports and furniture stores. Not really art but "wall decor."